Jack Ludwig enjoys a reputation as a writer of vitality and versatility: as novelist, short-story writer, essayist, literary critic, journalist, sports writer, television writer, and editor, he has over the past two decades established himself as something of a literary phenomenon in both Canada and the United States. He belongs to the Canadian literary scene by virtue of his birth, early life, and education, to the American through three decades of residence and teaching in the United States, and to the North American Jewish literary tradition on the basis of his major fictional concerns and characterizations.

Born in Winnipeg to Misha and Fanny Dolgin Ludwig, he received his public and university education in that city, graduating with a B.A. from the University of Manitoba in 1944. He married Leya Lauer of Edmonton in 1946 (they have two children) and subsequently attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where he...